CRN: 2189 | NINT 5380 | Fall 2022


New School for Public Engagement: International Affairs | Faculty: Stephen Metts | Email


Imgur Source: https://atlas.developmentseed.org/all/ | Connectivity Atlas


Welcome to GIS for International Crises, Development and the Environment - NINT5380.


I’m looking forward to meeting you as follows on the first day of class:

Note: remember to adhere to covid testing schedule and protocol so that you will not have any adverse access issues in our early class meetings.


During the first class lecture session, we will accomplish the following:


To ensure you are ready, please review the following documents and bring any questions that you may have to the first class:


The course interface will be accessed via CANVAS, accessed from My New School. Here you will find:

Weekly materials will appear generally on Mondays at 7AM, on a weekly basis.

The actual weekly content endpoints, accessed via CANVAS, are housed at GitHub which is fully accessible digitally, and can be downloaded on a weekly basis. If you would like to augment the online access for the course (available through 12/31/2022), you can easily print to PDF from the browser and save a copy of the assignment on your machine. You can also download the course repository at GitHub.

For course communication, we will utilize Slack. Our team name is tns-gis-fall22 and can be accessed directly:

There is also a direct invite link to the Slack workspace (please do not share publicaly with others outside the course) - INVITE

If you are new to Slack, there is a overview guide & a lynda.com overview course available to New School students for free as follows:

Once you have navigated to Slack and completed signup, send a hello to the class at the introductions channel. The following channels are available to the class, and each has a purpose as follows:



Throughout the course, we will utilize several Google Drive features. Some of these features are not fully available through a New School email address, so you will need to have a [gmail account]((https://accounts.google.com/signup) set up for the course if you do not have one. It is perfectly fine to use a personal gmail account that you have already.

In addition CANVAS and the Slack communication for the course, materials and software will be provided to complete all technical components of the course. For technical instruction, we will utilize certain sections from the following textbook. You are welcome to purchase this textbook, but it is not required as materials necessary each week will be provided:

Further, the course will feature a theory framework in which each week’s technical work will be conducted. This component will require a textbook purchase. There are several delivery options available. The title is as follows. The purchase can be accomplished via the following share link:

Note: You are welcome to purchase the download and print versions; however, the only required purchase is the online access version priced at $35.95.

Weekly readings will be conducted within this Essentials of Geographic Information Systems textbook; most weeks will then feature a weekly quiz for each week’s theory readings in the textbook. Quizzes open each Monday, and will cover the previous week’s content. Students can take the quiz anytime on Mondays leading up to each week’s lecture session on Monday evenings.

In addition to the weekly theory and technical assignments, the course features a final project that will be built from ‘the ground up’ - from proposal, to methodology, to technical delivery. A core requirement of the final project is consistency with the course themes. An excellent overview of relevant themes can be found throughout the following book:

Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years

This is a beautiful hardback atlas-like title that is not required, but indeed recommended for inspiration and context for course final projects.


The primary course software will be QGIS. The first week’s assignment will feature downloading and installation of the software package:


Note: the image above features a slightly outdated version of QGIS; the latest LTR is QGIS is Biatowieza 3.22 as of 08/2022.

Note: the most recent Long Term Release (LTR) version of QGIS is Biatowieza 3.22. You are encouraged to download this version; however, course materials are developed for the previous Long Term Release Version 3.16.9 LTR. This previous version is also the version of record loaded to the lab computers. The current 3.22 LTR is readily available as a core download. In those instances where there is a significant difference between 3.22 and 3.16 LTR versions, it will be called out in the weekly assignment with any needed instructions or workarounds.